K. Bromberg - Slow Burn

“Okay …” She draws the word out, prompting me to continue.

I struggle to put my thoughts into words. “He really is a great guy,” I try to explain. “I mean, my head’s messed-up, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried or yelled at him, and he just … he just stays there so I know he’s there, but not in that ‘he’s a pushover’ kind of way.” Tears well in my eyes, and I hate the blatant tell of what my heart feels. “But right now … it just might be the ‘right person but at the wrong time’ kind of thing.”

She takes a sip of her wine and then looks at the liquid in the glass before meeting my eyes, her mouth turned down at the edges. “Humans are drawn to each other’s rough edges. Look at Colton and me.” The look in her eyes reinforces the words she speaks.

“Well, screw the rough. I’m more jagged as of late.” I try to defuse things with humor. Broken shards of slicing glass is more like it. Come too close and you’ll get hurt by association alone.

“And yet he still called.” She’s relentless now.

“And I still ran.” I hang my head in shame.

“Haddie, look at me.” She waits patiently until I lift my eyes to meet hers. “I love you both. You’re both a huge part of my life, so, of course, it would be awesome if something worked out here … but you have to do what’s best for you. I just know that Becks is the type of guy who’s patient enough to help you face your fears if you let him….”

“Yeah,” I say, but right now she has no clue how close I’m coming to seeing my worst fears realized. She sits patiently, expression impassive as I think, collect myself to keep from blurting everything out, knowing she’s right but not ready to admit it yet. “I just can’t yet. It’s wrong to walk into something knowing your head is not in the right place. That’s just not fair to him.”

“I kind of think that’s for him to decide,” she says, chewing on the side of her cheek momentarily before she rises from her chair and heads to the pantry. She returns with a bag of Hershey’s Kisses and throws them on the counter in front of me. “Eat some. They help.”

“That’s the fix for all of this? Eat Kisses?” I laugh, wishing life were just that easy: all things fixable with chocolate.

“Fix? No, but it helps … and I think I’m going to quote a very dear friend of mine,” she says with a smirk on her face, and I know my own words are headed back at me. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone, Had. I know you’re scared, but push through it. You just might miss the opportunity to live again.”

I glare at her momentarily and curse myself for giving her the ammunition to fire that comment back at me. Her grin just grows wider, and I know what will knock that sarcastic smile right off her face.

Ready.

Aim.

Fire.

“I retook the test yesterday.” And a biopsy . The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I bite them back. I can’t ruin her first day back and posthoneymoon bliss with something that might be a nothing.

The chocolate she’s just unwrapped drops to the counter as her eyes widen and her mouth falls lax.

“You did?” Her eyes meet mine, and I can tell that with my admission she realizes just how much Becks has the potential to mean to me.

“I did.” My voice is barely a whisper. She’s on her feet in a beat and has her arms wrapped around me, squeezing me tight, no words needed. We stand like this for a few seconds.

“Well, hell, if you guys are going to finally get into the girl-on-girl thing, I get first dibs on watching, being the husband and all.” The voice at the doorway behind my back has both Rylee and me laughing through the emotion clogging our throats.

“Nah,” Rylee says as she releases me, a smirk on her face and love in her eyes as she looks at her husband. “I’ve kinda got a thing for baseball players. They’ve got big, hard sticks,” she teases, eliciting a deep laugh from him over some inside joke I obviously don’t get.

“Oh really? We’re back to that now? Just remember it’s not the size of the stick, sweetheart, but how you use it.” His smile grows wider as he saunters into the kitchen, the epitome of how arrogance can be sexy, and he owns her attention even before he kisses her softly on the lips.

“Size matters, Donavan,” I tell him, earning a scoff and a raise of his eyebrows in argument. “If it didn’t, they’d be selling four-inch dildos, now, wouldn’t they?”

He throws his head back in laughter as he closes the distance and kisses me on the top of my head. “Point made. Good to see you, Had.”

I look up at the devastatingly handsome husband of my best friend—the ever true bad boy who’s been claimed and is completely smitten with her. His board shorts ride low on his tanned, toned torso, but it’s the way he’s looking at his wife that is the most attractive thing about him. “Hey, Colton. Marriage looks good on you.”

He smirks, his lone dimple flashing and his eyes sparkling with mirth. “My wife on me would look better, but I’ve gotta take what I can get, right?”

The laughter comes easier this time, the emotional burden of the moment lightened by this man, who’s such a mixture of contradictions and turned out to be so much more than what I ever expected him to be for Rylee. And it was exactly what she needed.

“Should I leave?” I ask, feigning like I’m going to get up from my chair as Colton skirts around the island and grabs a beer from the refrigerator. “I know you newlyweds need your privacy and all.”

A blind man couldn’t miss the quick look between them, which has Rylee’s cheeks flushing and my mind whirling about what they got up to somewhere without privacy on their honeymoon. And my heart swells with love for the two of them. After everything they went through, they deserve all of the happiness in the world.

The distinct sound of Colton popping off the top of his bottle interrupts the momentary awkwardness of the moment, and he flashes me another of his megawatt smiles. “I’m sure you’ll get the blow-by-blow, pun intended ,” he teases, “when I leave.” He laughs as he grabs a carrot from the cutting board and just shakes his head as he walks toward the patio door.

I glance over at Rylee with my eyebrows raised, silently telling her I want details when she just blushes and tries to deflect my thinking.

“What time are the guys getting here?” she calls to Colton.

He glances over to the clock on the wall. “Like, thirty minutes. Throw a couple extra in there just in case, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll have the burgers ready by then.”

“No worries. Thanks, hon,” he says, starting to walk away as we both stare in admiration of his absolute male perfection.

The question is on my lips when I look over at Rylee, but she answers it before I can get it out. “Nope,” she smirks, “it never gets old looking at him.” We both laugh for a moment before the solemn silence falls over us once again. I know Ry’s not going to let this go easily.

And all of a sudden, the idea strikes me that this is all a setup. That Rylee and Colton have arranged this barbecue to fix this once and for all, even though she told me Becks had other obligations today. I start to panic momentarily about being forced to see him when I realize that it can’t be a setup because she didn’t know about Becks until a few moments ago.

Well, unless Becks said something to Colton. I stare at her and decide, Fuck it . “Is this all a setup?”

“What?” Rylee’s head whips up, confusion on her face until it dawns on her what I’m asking. Then she starts laughing out loud. “You’re really that paranoid about seeing him that you think I’m planning a fake barbecue to set the two of you up when I didn’t even know there was a two of you? Um, he is getting to you, isn’t he?”